The rants and raves of a teenage cinephile who is just a little bit obsessed with Catherine O'Hara and Hayao Miyazaki.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Best Score Ranking: 2009

As a musician, I always find the music categories of the Academy Awards interesting (albeit frustrating at times). Thus, I'm going to start occasionally rating their Best Score nominees, and giving them "scores" of their own! Ahaha. It's inspired by the Best Leading/Supporting Actress rankings of Sage Slowdive and Joe Burns on their blogs.

I'll make this thing more or less frequent, depending on how you guys respond!

So let's start with last year - 2010. From least to most favorite. With a rating of 1-5 "cinematic music notes". Haha.

5. Sherlock Holmes - Hans Zimmer

It's a lot of fun and definitely in the character of the movie, but Hans Zimmer is sort of just doing his same old thing, and he hasn't really trumped a lot of his past work (Lion King!!!)

4. Fantastic Mr. Fox - Alexandre Desplat

So cute and wonderful! Perfect for the movie, which I also loved. Not my favorite Desplat score from the year, but still quite perfect, and a great surprise nominee.

3. Avatar - James Horner

I really love the music for this movie. Sure, Horner uses a lot of his old material, and it's "I See You" over and over, but...those grand scenes with this beautiful work in the background are just irresistable.

2. The Hurt Locker - Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders

I really, really like that this was nominated. The theme is fantastic, and the atmospheric music for the "suspensful" scenes really added to the movie, without being overbearing. Quite a deserved nominee.

1. Up - Michael Giacchino

Yes! I went with the actual winner, but really, it's marvelous! One of my absolute favorite scores of the decade, with such an absolutely wonderful theme. Makes me tear up every time I hear it!

Should Have Been Nominated...

Broken Embraces (Alberto Iglesias), Coraline (Bruno Coulais), Julie and Julia (Alexandre Desplat), Ponyo (Joe Hisaishi), Where the Wild Things Are (Carter Burwell and Karen O), and so many more, this was a great year for movie scores.

React below!!! I need some ideas since this is new. What year should I do next?

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is really the best for me, the score was my least fave thing of Avatar but it gets better on repeat viewings. Other notables include Bradshaw in Bright Star, Desplat in Cheri, A Single Man and Coraline...and so many more.